Self-sufficient enterprise

Peter Mulvaney and Sergio Sádaba Every day the world is becoming more familiar with the realities of water scarcity.

Water utilities often are seen as the solution to these pressing issues, but virtually every architectural project involves water in one way or another, and it is in buildings where people have a daily and direct relationship with water.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, Pertamina, the national energy company for Indonesia, sought to create a new headquarters campus including a super tall tower. Pertamina challenged its architects to design the new headquarters to operate for 3 days without grid connections for electricity and achieve zero water discharge.

The architects accepted this challenge and quickly understood the need for establishing guiding water principles based on a strong understanding of the local context. This led to the evolution of what could be the world’s first supertall tower campus with an on-site water resource recovery facility (WRRF) and zero liquid discharge.